PEC allocates roll numbers to the students on the basis of data provided by the districts and roll numbers are distributed by EDO Education office through schools. As the commission does not deal with the registration forms directly, so registration through the district offices is essential.

There are 34 total items, 30 MCQs and 4 open ended questions for Grade 5 whereas Grade 8 has a total of 44 items, 40 MCQs and 4 open ended questions.Thus making a ratio of 60% MCQs and 40% open ended questions. Moreover, 40% marks are assigned for Nazra Quran and practical subjects like drawing, agriculture and home economics.

The new examination system will serve as a database to provide advice to a wide variety of stakeholders within the education sector. It will provide advice to the Minister, district superintendents, curriculum developers, schools, parents and students. More specifically its objectives include:

To elaborate what students at different levels of ability know, can do, and understand (use criterion referenced approach in conjunction with norm referenced approach)

To audit the officially prescribed school curriculum

To improve teaching and learning

To monitor equity of student outcomes

To monitor provincial education progress

To monitor school performance and progress

To monitor student progress over time

To monitor the efficiency of service delivery

To monitor the effectiveness of service delivery

To facilitate national and international comparison of student achievements

To select students to promote to the next class

To facilitate judgment about the quality of examination papers and the examination process (construct validity, reliability, item discrimination, match between paper difficulty and cohort ability

A committee comprising of subject specialists, teachers, Punjab Text Book Board officials and university members has been appointed and given the responsibility of setting examination papers under the coordination of the Operations Manager of PEC.
The paper setting procedure is further divided in three steps. The first step involves the development of a Subject design matrix to specify the content and question difficulty level. The second stage is to prepare a trial/mock examination that is tested using approximately 2000 students. Finally, the annual examination paper is prepared along with a similar ‘model paper’ for the schools’ aid.
For grade 5 each exam paper is 1 hour long and consists of some multiple choice questions and some open response questions.

While we do provide a “mark” for students, we also try and give greater meaning to this mark. The traditional mark system is what is technically referred to as a “norm referenced” system that gives us a mark and a rank for each student but tells us very little about the outcome the student has acquired.

The new system of analysis attempts to link outcomes to groups of students and is known as a “criterion referenced” system.
The approach taken is known as Rash Modeling, and we use Quest software to perform the analysis by entering student responses into an electronic database.
For reference: Adams R.J. & Khoo, S-T. (1996) Quest: The interactive test analysis system, Version 2. Camberwell: ACER click here.

We understand that PEC is introducing a new conceptual framework to support the design of examination papers and the design of marking schemes for the open-ended questions.

Yes, this is so. Traditionally, test developers have used Bloom’s Taxonomy to encourage the use of questions of different difficulty. While Bloom has served us well and will continue to do so, there is some literature now available that suggests it does not describe student’s cognitive growth. (For example see Hattie article in the links below). If we ask “knowledge” or an “evaluation” question (Bloom’s terms) we can still expect a variety of qualities of responses from a cohort of students. In an attempt to classify these response qualities and the make explicit the differences between them we have introduced a conceptual framework that has grown out of the work of Piaget, and was developed by Biggs and Collis in 1982 known as the SOLO (Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes). This conceptual framework has undergone considerable development since 1982, but thus far we are applying the relatively simple original version.

We calculate the mean and standard deviation of all the students. We then take a band, 1 standard deviation wide about the mean and students lying in this band are awarded a grade C. A Band one standard deviation wide above the grade C band is the Grade B band. Students above grade B are awarded grade A. In a similar manner, students below Grade C are awarded grades D and E.

There two level at which we can respond to this question. The first is a highly technical. The Rash model converts raw scores, which are an ordinal scale, to an interval level scale using logits as a unit of measurement of student ability and question difficulty. Initially these scores are located on a scale with a mean near 0 and range of approximately +4 to –4. To make the scores more meaningful to the non-statisticians amongst us, we use the Quest software to convert the logit scale to a range of zero to 50. This transformation retains the essential psychometric properties of the original logit scale, and the mean and standard deviation will depend on the original mean and standard deviation. Details can be downloaded from here.

What will the student reports look like, and will they include competency statements?

The student reports will contain personal details of the students, subject marks and grades. In the near future, the outcomes that the grades represent will be on the report as well. Details can be downloaded from here.

Who can get information from the PEC and how do they go about getting that data?

A policy on this matter is being developed. This is not a straight forward matter as there are issues of confidentiality involved.
However there are a set of standard reports being developed that will automatically be provided to students and parents, schools, district offices and specialist units within the Ministry of Education

How can my organization learn more about. Does PEC provide training for appropriate organizations?

PEC in association with QAED (Quaid-e-Azam Academy for Educational Development) is developing sets of training materials. Currently, we have some materials developed and a few resource persons trained in their delivery. Our major focus is on the training of appropriate school principals to interpret the data from the examinations and to develop School Improvement Plan to address issues that appear from that analysis.